Eke Shimamizu’s The Maid I Admire Looks Good with a Cigarette has officially reached its ending in Japan.
The final chapter of the manga ran in the May issue of Square Enix’s Monthly Gangan Joker magazine on Wednesday. For readers who prefer collecting the series in volume form, the fourth compiled book volume will be the last one, and it is scheduled to ship in Japan on June 22.
That makes this a pretty compact run overall. Shimamizu first launched the manga in Gangan Joker back in May 2024, so the series is wrapping up after roughly two years of serialization. Square Enix previously released the third compiled volume in June 2025.
For English-language readers, the series is available through Manga UP!, Square Enix’s digital manga platform. The story follows Hijiri, a veteran maid who becomes the object of admiration for Suu, a rookie maid and junior coworker. Through that dynamic, Suu gets pulled into a romantic world filled with tense, heart-racing moments, framed around a cast of stylish and charming maids.
For Malaysia and SEA manga fans, this is one of those smaller titles that may not dominate anime convention banners or TikTok edits, but it sits in a lane that a lot of readers quietly enjoy: workplace romance, maid café aesthetics, and slightly niche character chemistry. Not every manga needs to become a 12-episode anime to be worth following, bro. Sometimes a short, focused four-volume romance is exactly the kind of thing you want to binge over a weekend.
The maid theme also has strong overlap with the regional ACG scene. Malaysian anime fans will already know how popular maid café pop-ups, cosplay booths, and character-themed fan art can get at local events. A title like The Maid I Admire Looks Good with a Cigarette taps into that same visual appeal, but with a more intimate romance setup rather than big fantasy battles or idol drama.
The ending also makes the series easier to recommend now. For readers tired of picking up manga that go on forever or stall between releases, a completed four-volume run is much less intimidating. If Manga UP! continues to make the English version accessible, this could be a neat catch-up read for fans who like romantic tension, workplace character dynamics, and manga with a very specific mood.
No anime adaptation has been announced in the provided information, so for now this remains a manga-first recommendation. But with the final Japanese volume dated for June 22, fans at least have a clear endpoint to look forward to.
Source: Anime News Network